


Otherwise Sensible Women

by PenguinofProse



Series: Season 7 speculation [6]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Bellarke subtext, Episode AU: 7.04 Hesperides, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Skyring time skip, Talking to tomatoes, because OF COURSE THERE IS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:55:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25311205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenguinofProse/pseuds/PenguinofProse
Summary: In which Echo and Hope grow closer over the course of the five years they spend together on Skyring.
Relationships: Echo/Hope Diyoza
Series: Season 7 speculation [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1783594
Comments: 14
Kudos: 61





	Otherwise Sensible Women

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I have seen the episode. Yes, even *that* fear simulation scene. But if I close my eyes and put my hands over my ears and sing loudly enough, I can still pretend that Echo's character arc this season makes sense and that we're going to get Echope endgame and it's all going to be OK. 
> 
> Please enjoy five peaceful years of Echope relationship development on Skyring. Happy reading!

Echo has always considered herself a sensible woman.

But it seems that she's been rather senseless, these last few days. Running after Bellamy wasn't entirely irrational, she figures. That was being a good girlfriend, and it was loyalty, even if it wasn't the most logical loyalty of her life. But failing to shoot a hallucination of Roan? Following a brand-new acquaintance eagerly into the unknown?

These daily diving trips into a lake too deep to even _imagine_ the bottom?

It turns out that, maybe, she's not so sensible when the people she cares about are in danger. In her defence, she figures there's a good reason she never noticed this about herself. She never really cared about anyone until those six years in space, so she's never had much reason to be so thoroughly senseless before.

Admitting defeat for the day, she turns and strikes out for the shore. She's dived seven times today, her most recent couple of attempts growing feeble with exhaustion. She ought to go back to the house to get warm and dry. That's the sensible move, she decides, clinging to the threads of her old identity with desperate, chilled fingers.

Hope is on the shore, perched on the rocks that lean out over the lake, casting that jellyfish net out with impressive tenacity.

"Caught anything?" Echo asks, hauling herself out onto the rocks nearby, barking her shin in the process. The sandy beach would have been safer and easier, she is very aware of that. It would have brought her out of the water nearer to the house with its warm fire, too.

But has she mentioned that she's not doing so well at good sense, recently?

"Guess." Hope challenges her, with a hint of a smile.

"Hmm. Jellyfish?" Echo pretends uncertainty.

Hope nods, laughing a little. "I'll be glad when the lettuces are ready."

Echo never thought she would agree with that sentiment. She never really associated lettuce with eagerness, before now. But then again, she never really associated the daughter of a terrorist with butterflies in her stomach or with an irrational desire to smile, either.

It seems that she really has taken leave of her senses, this week.

…...

Logic returns to her, a little at a time.

She sorts out new sets of clothes for each of them, and Gabriel even thanks her for them. Hope doesn't _say_ anything about gratitude, of course, because she still hasn't decided whether she's allowed to be friends with her aunt's brother's girlfriend, but Echo can see it in her eyes all the same.

She takes careful stock of their equipment, keeps their meagre supply of tools and weapons carefully arranged and ready for use. That's a sensible thing to do, she figures, now that they literally live in hostile territory.

Now that they will be living in hostile territory for the next five years.

She's still having trouble swallowing that time frame. That's why she's reluctant to help with the garden, she thinks. Planting cabbages would be tantamount to giving up hope, and admitting it's time to make a life here.

Denial of the facts isn't particularly rational, of course. But she stopped being rational some time ago.

She resists gardening for other reasons, too, as the weeks stretch out and it becomes clear that they really are stuck here. It's stupid, but she doesn't know _how_ to garden. She tried it, that one time, attacking the soil as if it were an enemy in battle and all she got for her trouble was a substantial dose of teasing.

Hope, however, will not let the matter rest. She's a well-named young woman, Echo has to admit. Her optimistic tenacity is infuriating.

"Octavia said you were brave." Hope tells her one morning.

She frowns. She cannot see what that has to do with anything, and she certainly cannot see what it has to do with the hoe in Hope's right hand and bowl of seeds in her left.

"You need to be brave now. You need to face up to the truth. This is our life now, and we need to eat."

Echo stands up and goes to grab a trowel. Not because Hope is right, or anything, but just because it seems foolish to turn down the chance for a lesson on the finer points of agriculture.

Maybe, if she gives this a go, Hope might even smile at her along the way.

…...

To Echo's surprise, she gets the hang of gardening, eventually. It turns out that it's hardly a difficult occupation, just a new one. And Hope is good company while she learns what she's doing, and that keeps the lessons almost fun.

"What do I do now?" Echo sits back on her heels and admires the small trench she has shaped in the soil.

"You plant the seeds." Hope smiles, encouraging, and hands her some seeds.

"But how?" Echo hates getting things wrong. "I don't just – put them in the ground and pray?"

"That pretty much is what you do. Here." Hope pours a few seeds into her hand, does the same for herself. "Like this. Just pour them thinly so the seedlings don't come up on top of each other."

Right. Yes. Because obviously a spy would know that cabbages don't like to be overcrowded.

"Like this?" She checks, trickling the seeds slowly through her fingers.

"Too fast." Hope shoots out a hand as if to take Echo's in her own, then stills suddenly, just out of reach. "Even slower." She says briskly, pulling her hand back out of the way.

Echo can follow that instruction. She can sow seeds slowly. She can dig a row, and pat the soil firmly over it afterwards.

One thing, however, it seems she cannot do. She cannot behave sensibly around Hope Diyoza.

…...

She starts talking to the plants.

That's not sensible, either. Obviously it isn't. But Hope did say that the next step after planting was basically praying, and it seems a small step from there to having a chat with a cauliflower.

She really is losing her mind, here, on this infuriatingly beautiful planet with this infuriatingly beautiful woman.

She's not supposed to have noticed that, she's pretty sure. She ended up here out of loyalty to Bellamy. And she still is loyal to him – of course she is – and absolutely determined to get him back.

But it seems she can notice Hope's cheekbones at the same time. Just in an abstract sort of way, obviously. They're just objectively aesthetically pleasing, and that's that.

Next thing she knows, she'll be telling the tomatoes about her conflicted heart.

…...

She notices Hope from a distance, as the vegetables flourish and the weeks stretch out to months – or at least, from as much distance as one can keep, on a planet with a population of four.

When she loses the fight to Orlando, for example, and they end up sleeping outside, she takes care to settle in for the night with Gabriel lying between herself and Hope. That's a sensible precaution, she figures. She would hate to think how her subconscious might betray her in sleep. That's the problem with frosty self-control – it only works when she's awake.

It gets easier to stay at arm's length, in the first months that they work with Orlando. Training is new, and exciting, and gives them something to do. And there is plenty of fuel for discussion on the subject of Bardo, with no awkward lulls in the conversation during which Echo might be tempted to start a more personal conversation with Hope.

That's a good thing. It's a good thing, because she shouldn't be going around having personal conversations with people who are not Bellamy. But it's also a good thing because she doesn't know _how_ to have a personal conversation. It's not something she's ever tried more than a handful of stilted times with her absent boyfriend. She's not good at talking about her feelings – partly because it hurts, and partly because she still has this deep-seated belief that no one in their right mind would be interested in hearing about what's really going on in her head.

So it is that she does a perfect job of keeping Hope at arm's length, and using her good sense, and staying loyal to Bellamy – until the day when she doesn't.

…...

Combat training is basically Echo's favourite part of each day. She's tried to get into gardening – really, she has – but however long she spends talking to tomatoes, she feels more comfortable having a fight. It's familiar, and it's where she has confidence.

Until the day she takes down Hope, and stays there, kneeling on her shoulders, straddling her, looking down into her eyes for far too long.

By _far too long_ , she doesn't just mean a heartbeat or two. No, she means entire loaded _seconds_ in which she kneels, invading her personal space, listening to the both of them breathing erratically.

"Echo." Gabriel's voice snaps her out of it.

All at once she is up, staggering backwards away from Hope as quickly as she can, turning to jog towards the house with a stammered excuse about fetching water.

She's a sensible woman. Or, at least, she used to have some sense, before Hope appeared on the scene.

She drinks her water slowly, concentrates very carefully on the cooling sensation of it slipping down her throat. Then she counts the pumpkins in the garden, walks a couple of laps of the house, practises breathing out as slowly as she can.

By the time she has exhausted all her techniques for the marshalling of self-control, she is more or less ready to face her friends once more. She heads back to the space where they train, tossing her hair back behind her shoulders, jaw set in determination.

"Hey. Sorry. I'm back now. Can I partner with you next, Gabriel? Looks like I've got the measure of Hope. No point us pairing up again." She shrugs, deliberately casual, and prays that no one will question her excuse.

Hope, of course, has never been much good at keeping quiet for the convenience of others. "You have not _got the measure of me_." She argues, practically spitting in her fury. "I'll get you back."

"No you won't. I'll be training with Gabriel."

"Not likely." Hope argues, getting right up in her face, mouth set in a frown.

That's when Echo makes her next mistake, in a year that has been marked by nothing but mistakes. She looks up from her feet, right into Hope's eyes, and realises that maybe she's not alone in struggling to be entirely rational, here.

Before she's had time to process that – to decide whether it's scary, or brilliant, or some exhilarating mix of the two – Hope is fighting, giving as good as she gets, sweeping Echo's legs out from under her.

This time, it is Hope who lands on top. This time, it is Hope who kneels for several seconds too long, as the two of them try to recover their breath. This time, Echo is absolutely certain that she's reading the same struggle in Hope's eyes as she feels in her own heart.

Maybe she's not the only one clinging to a mask of self-control, round here.

She taps out, needing to flee for the second time in twenty minutes.

She taps out, and remembers Bellamy. Remembers getting together with him, the night he first beat her. The night he first knelt on her shoulders, in circumstances not so different from these.

Suddenly, it is all to easy to stay frosty and aloof, as cold shame at her own pathetic disloyalty has her heartrate crashing right back down to normal.

…...

They don't talk about that day, nor for many long months.

Echo pairs up with Gabriel, next training session. Hope fights with Orlando.

It's not a big deal. Really it isn't. It just makes sense for them to train with different partners, that's all.

…...

Echo isn't avoiding Hope, because that would be impossible. There are only four people on this planet, and they're training closely together for a high-stakes mission. She cannot allow her own stupid feelings to interfere with the communication and teamwork of this close-knit group.

But she keeps their conversations very firmly to matters of business.

Right now, for example, Hope is lugging a pair of filled buckets of water out towards the garden, and Echo thinks that's probably not in the overall interests of the team. Hope has had a tough day training – Echo saw her fall heavily on her left leg only hours ago – and so it seems foolish to let her do any more physical labour, today. Not because she cares about Hope, or anything. Not because she's feeling particularly protective. Just because it won't be much good for their long-term goals if Hope manages to get herself injured.

"I've got this." Echo declares before she can overthink it, striding over and easing the buckets out of Hope's hands.

"I can do it." Hope protests, but it's too late. Echo has caught her by surprise and is already half way to the garden.

"It's fine. Sit down." Echo recommends, calling back over her shoulder.

Hope has followed her, of course, tenacious as ever. She may not be carrying the water any more, but she's still bustling around the garden, limping ever so slightly on her injured leg. "I can do it, Echo. It's my turn."

Echo stops, turns to look her right in the eyes. It seems she's going to have to come out and say it.

"I know it's your turn. But you're hurt, so I'm covering for you. Go sit down and let that leg heal."

Hope frowns, annoyed. But she doesn't argue further. On the other hand, she doesn't exactly follow Echo's instruction to head back to the house and rest, either.

She sits herself down, right in the middle of the vegetable garden, her injured leg stretched out before her. And she stays there, and watches Echo water the crops in stony silence until she is done.

…...

Echo's still diving every day. Her days of diving seven times in one outing are long gone – these days, she's lucky if she can muster the tired loyalty to make three attempts. But she keeps at it all the same.

She tends to sneak out there first thing in the morning, just as dawn is breaking, before the others are awake. It's even colder, diving at that time of day, but at least it allows her to avoid awkward questions.

Mostly it allows her to avoid awkward questions, anyway. Today, not so much.

Hope is waiting on the shore. Echo seriously debates turning around, and swimming back into the middle of the lake, and diving all over again. The only thing that stops her is her absolute certainty that Hope will just wait as long as it takes her to get back.

To her surprise, Hope waits until she has arrived on the shore before she says whatever she has come to say. More than that – she even hands her a towel, warmed through and cozy, and gestures to Echo to wrap herself in it. She does, trying not to blush. She has underwear on, so this isn't a big deal. It's just a kind member of her found family giving her a warm towel.

And then Hope speaks at last. "I wish you wouldn't keep doing this."

Echo doesn't bother pretending to misunderstand. "I have to. You know I have to."

"I know. But I wish you didn't."

Echo only shrugs. Sometimes she wishes that, too.

"What if you do get through, what then? I've spent my whole life lonely, Echo. I don't want to lose you, too." Hope sounds surprisingly distressed at the thought, she thinks.

Without letting herself overthink it, she reaches a friendly but damp arm around her shoulder. "You'd be OK. You know you would. You have Gabriel and Orlando."

"They're not you." Hope says, firm, almost angry.

Echo doesn't let herself think much about what that tone means. She doesn't think much about what this whole entire conversation means – or rather, she tries not to.

She doesn't dive the next day. As in, the day after Hope said she wished Echo wouldn't keep diving.

The two things might be related.

Whatever. It's not a big deal. She's still totally loyal to Bellamy. Loyal, and in full possession of her senses.

…...

She never dives again after that day, in fact. She's a little annoyed with herself for that, because Octavia tried for six years, and Echo supposes it could look bad that she gave up after less than two.

But it's not because she loves Bellamy any less than his sister does, she tells herself. It's just because she's more rational than Octavia. She has the good sense to know when to quit.

…...

Echo finds the lines blurring, a little bit, after that day by the lake. It's only natural, she supposes. They've been stuck here for a couple of years in limited company. It's only natural that a personal conversation about loneliness and a declaration of _they're not you_ might get misinterpreted, in this situation. It's no surprise that she finds herself having slightly less businesslike conversations with Hope.

It's when they stop being _conversations_ and start being hugs, or fleeting touches of the hand or shoulder or knee, that she knows she's in serious trouble.

She does nothing to stop it, though, because the rational part of her brain seems to have malfunctioned since they came to Skyring.

She does nothing to stop it, until the day comes when she simply has to put a stop to it.

They're sitting by the lake together, fishing for jellyfish. Or, rather, Hope is fishing for jellyfish, and Echo is teasing her about her family recipe for jellyfish etouffee, and occasionally kicking splash up with the tips of her toes. She figures she's probably being a bit annoying, really, and most definitely scaring the jellyfish away. But Hope has this funny way of bringing out her more silly side, and making splashing in the lake seem like a worthwhile thing to do.

"Octavia didn't tell me about this, you know?" Hope says, out of the blue.

Echo doesn't know at all, actually. "What do you mean?"

"This side of you. That you can be a total pest. That you can moan about jellyfish but then make a point of thanking me for cooking it. That – that your laugh is beautiful." Echo feels her breath catch in her throat. She wishes she could just relax and rejoice at this development. Hope thinks her laugh is beautiful, and she's pretty sure that compliment will be playing on repeat in her thoughts for the next three months at least.

But she can't. She can't do that, and she can't have this.

"I guess Octavia never heard me laugh." She says, trying to keep her tone light.

She fails. She fails _spectacularly_ , and catches herself leaning into Hope's personal space a little more than usual. And then Hope is leaning in, too, and her eyes are fluttering closed, and this is really about to happen.

Echo scrambles to her feet. It's the only thing she can do. She gets up, and scuttles backwards, her wet toes sliding on the rocks.

So much for a carefree afternoon kicking up spray.

"I can't. You know I can't." She gasps, torn between wanting to apologise and explain herself and needing to get out of here.

She seems to spend a lot of time telling Hope about all the things she can't do, she notes sadly.

"I don't see why not." Hope argues, sounding more angry than hurt. "You've said it yourself, you're convinced he loves Clarke more anyway. So what does it matter?" Hope does make a good point, but it's more complicated than that.

"I can't be the one to break it." She explains desperately. "Don't you get it? My loyalty is the only thing I have, Hope. Life has taken everything else away from me. My parents, my people. My best friend." She swallows painfully. "My laugh. Just – leave me my loyalty." She pleads, aware that she's crying, but not really in a position to stop herself.

Loyalty didn't used to be the only thing she had. She used to have her good sense, too. But she's not had that since the day Hope Diyoza stumbled out of a fog of green and into her life.

…...

They don't talk about it, but something changes. They don't come close to kissing again, don't do anything that would push the boundaries of her loyalty to Bellamy, but it's as if they have implicitly acknowledged that there is more going on here than simple friendship. They have this sort of inappropriately-close-best-friends thing that Echo cannot truly define.

The closest she can come to putting a label on it, actually, is to say that it reminds her of watching Bellamy and Clarke.

That thought ought to hurt, but it doesn't, somehow. So it is that she and Hope get on with sharing lingering looks and stolen laughter. They also talk, about everything and about nothing. Echo finds that she talks more about her feelings than she has in the whole of the rest of her life put together, and it scares her a little.

But the scariest thing, strangely, is that it doesn't scare her _more_. That it feels more comfortable than she thinks it really should.

"I miss my mum." Hope announces, one evening, as the two of them sit in the garden, leaning up against the wall of the house and watching the stars.

There are options here, of course. The old Echo, the Echo from Earth, would have ignored the comment altogether. The Echo from the Ring might have offered her a drink of water, or perhaps a brief hug.

The Echo who's spent the last three years on Skyring is different, though.

"I miss mine, too." She offers, voice small in the darkness.

She feels Hope turn to look at her. "You've never mentioned her before."

Echo shrugs. "Not much to say. I was young when she was killed. She was very _Azgeda_ , you know? Always putting a brave face on things. But she was kind underneath that, at least to her family." She always wished she could grow up to be like that. So far, not much success, she thinks ruefully. She's got the brave face down to a tee, but she's still working on kindness.

"She'd be really proud of you, Echo. She'd tell you that if she could see you now." Hope offers, earnest.

Echo snorts. "She wouldn't be. Apart from anything else, she wouldn't call me Echo at all." She offers, tone carefully neutral. She can't believe she's really saying this. She's never said it to someone she expected to live long enough to remember her story, before now.

"What do you mean?" Hope catches onto her strange comment.

"It's not my name. Or – it wasn't my name." She swallows. "It was someone else's name. My friend when I was a girl. I killed her."

Hope is silent. Of course she's silent, Echo seethes, angry at herself. What did she think would happen? She finally finds someone who might actually like her quite a lot, and she has to go and reveal that she's been a murderer since she was a child.

So much for good sense and sound strategy.

She's surprised when Hope speaks – by the very fact that they're still on speaking terms after that revelation, as much as the content of what she says.

"You didn't have a choice." Hope guesses. "You had to do it. It was you or her, kill or be killed."

Echo's jaw drops. She didn't expect Hope to be able to work that out from what little she said. She gathers her self control and presses on. "Yeah, but there's always a choice."

Hope snorts. "I've heard a lot of stories about Earth and I don't think that's true. And I know it's not true on Skyring, either. I think it's human nature to do anything to protect yourself or the people you care about."

Unbidden, an image springs to Echo's mind of Bellamy, frantic, dropping everything to drag Josephine through the shield and rescue Clarke.

She brushes it aside. "Sometimes I wish it wasn't. The family I found on the Ring, they liked to say we should do better. I was never much good at doing better."

"You're doing OK, Echo. My mother was a terrorist and Auntie O was Blodreina. I think you're probably the most peaceful person I know."

They both laugh at that. It's perhaps a sorry state of affairs, to be laughing at mass murder. But Echo does it anyway, relieved at least not to be crying instead.

It turns out that maybe, she is capable of having personal conversations with people who are not Bellamy after all – or more specifically, with this particular person. More than that, it is _better_ , talking to Hope than to Bellamy. It is less stressful, with less fear of letting her down, somehow.

More than that, she gets the impression that Hope is actually interested in hearing what she has to say. And that's dangerous, but it's dangerous in a thrilling way that keeps her wide awake, that night.

…...

Their late night conversations become quite a regular thing after that, sitting against the wall of the house and watching the stars. Sometimes Echo wonders whether Clarke and Bellamy have ever had such a routine. She's pieced together a few facts about their strange relationship, from things Bellamy would say whilst drunk and crying in space. She knows, for example, that Clarke once offered him forgiveness whilst sitting against a tree, and she thinks that does sound like quite a similar notion to these personal chats with Hope.

It's weird, and she knows it's weird. It's strange that her barometer of romantic behaviour is her boyfriend's interactions with another woman. It's even odder that she cannot muster so much as a shred of jealousy at the thought, these days.

"Tell me about Clarke." Hope requests, one night. Echo sighs. She supposes the question was bound to come up eventually.

"Clarke is Clarke." She says, aware she's being unhelpful. "Even if you're her enemy there's something about her that commands respect. She can be kind, too. I think she's more sensitive than she likes to let on. And she's another one of those _otherwise sensible women_ willing to die for Bellamy."

"I don't mean like that. I don't mean things Auntie O already told me. I mean – tell me about her and Bellamy. I'm guessing you've never been able to talk to anyone about that before."

Hope's right, of course. She's been living for literally centuries with the knowledge that her boyfriend loved Clarke first, and will always love Clarke more, it seems. But now that she has the invitation to get it off her chest, she scarcely knows where to begin.

"He told me he loved her, once, when we were in space. He was drunk, I don't think he even remembered saying it. And then we landed and he never mentioned it again, and since then, I just can't get it out of my head, you know? He loved her. She's alive. But he never owned up to it." She realises as she speaks quite how much bitterness she's been harbouring over this.

"Don't you think you deserve better than that?" Hope asks.

"He loves me in a way."

"You deserve better than being loved _in a way_." Hope insists. "From what I can tell, he's grateful that you held him together when he thought Clarke was dead. But that's not real love."

Echo feels anger rising in her throat. "I get it, OK? It's pathetic. _I'm_ pathetic. I understand, believe me. But it is what it is, and – loyalty."

"You're not pathetic." Hope assures her, almost dismissive. "You're the least pathetic person I know. But I just wish you didn't think so little of yourself."

"I don't think _so little_ of myself. I'm a great spy." She points out, temper still rising.

"I mean in – in _this_. You deserve someone who really loves you for who you are. You deserve to be someone's first choice, not just _convenient_."

Echo's furious, now. "Really? And what would you know about that, Hope? What would you know about love, when you've known, what, half a dozen people your whole life?"

"Echo -"

"How do you know that you're not choosing me for exactly the same reasons Bellamy did?" She concludes, practically spitting the words, then jumping to her feet and striding out into the dark forest.

She needs to walk – or possibly even jog – until she's shaken off this temper. She doesn't usually lose her temper like that, but Hope has always wreaked havoc with that rational part of her brain. It's just ridiculous, that Hope's trying to say she really loves Echo. Why would she? Echo has a pretty low opinion of her own usefulness as a romantic partner.

No. That's putting it mildly. She's a terrible romantic partner, mooning pathetically here on a prison planet for five years instead of saving her boyfriend, steadily falling in love with someone else all the while.

She's poison, and Hope must want no part of her. And if Hope thinks differently, that must be naivety or lack of choices or just sheer youthful optimism at work. No one has ever loved Echo before apart from when they were seriously short of other options, and she doesn't see any good reason why that should change now.

Of course, Echo doesn't get the chance to walk off her anger alone. She doesn't get the chance because Hope jogs after her, crashing noisily through the trees, calling out her name in audible distress.

Echo gives up. She turns to face the music.

"I'm here." She calls, somewhere between frustrated and sad, already surpassing anger and finding herself exhausted.

"Thank goodness." Hope runs over to her and, of all things, pulls her into a hearty hug.

Echo relaxes against her, confused but not complaining.

"I'm sorry for storming off." She offers. She's not sorry for what she said, but she figures she needs to offer some kind of apology.

"It's OK. It's OK." They're still hugging, and the words come out slightly muffled. "I get it. Really, I do. Bellamy and loyalty. But don't you dare tell me I don't know what I'm talking about. However many people I meet, only one of them will ever be _you_." Echo smiles against Hope's hair. She cannot help herself. It seems they always come back to that. And it seems that, for the first time in all these years, she starts to believe it.

"You, too." She says. It doesn't make literal sense as a comment, at this point, but the sentiment is there, and Hope seems to get the gist, still hugging her tight.

Echo gives in, then. She gives in, wholeheartedly, and decides that maybe Hope does know what's going on in her own heart. Nothing's going to happen, of course, because of Bellamy and loyalty, but she's done with pretending not to feel the way she feels.

Echo and Bellamy found each other in a cage, to begin with. And she always felt that the Ring was something of a cage, too, a confining contraption of metal where there were very few choices when it came to falling in love.

There's no more company on Skyring, of course. But as they stand here, in a vast forest, beneath an open sky, Echo cannot help but feel that there is more freedom, here, that life is less restricted. That this is the very opposite of a cage, and maybe that explains why love feels more genuine, here, too.

…...

Echo always thought she was just the kind of woman people love while they're waiting for the woman they really love to survive the apocalypse.

You can see why she thought that, can't you? It's literally her life story.

She knows different, now. Not because Hope says it, or because there are any more attempts to kiss. But because they laugh as they net jellyfish, cry as they share stories of their childhoods, squabble over whose turn it is to tend the tomatoes today.

She can feel her resolve slipping, and the worst thing of all is that she no longer cares. Maybe it's because the five years are nearly up. They'll be going to look for Bellamy, soon, and then they'll have lost their chance. This might be the last opportunity she ever gets to do something for herself, seize happiness with both hands, rather than wait on the every wish of her commanding officer.

She's beginning to think that maybe being loved outweighs being sensible, when all's said and done.

…...

Echo still hasn't acted on it, and time is running out. In fact, time has more or less _run out_ – they're leaving tomorrow. They've spent the day in preparations, and Hope has had a haircut, which doesn't exactly help matters. She thought she had it bad before, but now she's just feeling hopelessly smitten.

There's time for one last late-night conversation out in the garden, before they go. The atmosphere is a little different, almost mournful, as if they're both sad to say goodbye to this chapter, however desperate they are to get their families back.

They talk about the vegetables they'll be leaving behind. It's a silly thing, but there's this one particular pumpkin Echo has spent months taking care of, watering it and dusting it and yes, even talking to it, and they're going to end up leaving without harvesting it.

She stops thinking about pumpkins very abruptly when Hope sighs, loudly, and turns to look straight at her.

"Your hair looks great. Sorry, I know – Bellamy and loyalty. But I just had to say it once, OK?" Hope sounds nervous, Echo thinks, but determined.

All at once, she decides to just go for it. She knows that's the very opposite of sensible, but she's been sensible for over a hundred and fifty years and it hasn't brought her happiness.

This is her last chance, and she intends to take it while she still can.

She leans in, slowly, giving Hope chance to pull away if she wants to. But Hope doesn't withdraw – rather, she leans ever closer in, a familiar question in her eyes.

Echo kisses her, then. It's a brief kiss – more than a peck, but less than an all-out _snog_. It's not tentative at all, because they've had five years to prepare themselves for this moment. Hope's lips are warm, and soft, but she kisses firmly, and it's every bit as good as Echo always knew it would be.

She draws away, breathless, and closes her eyes.

"We can leave that here, if you want to. We can forget all about it." Echo offers, because she has to. She's done with lovers thinking they're obligated to hold onto her after choosing her in a time of isolation and distress. She needs to ensure Hope knows she has an easy way out, if she wants to take it.

"I don't want to forget all about it."

Echo smiles, more widely than she thinks she has ever smiled before. "Good. Me neither."

They kiss a bit more. It might be Hope who closes the distance, this time, but such details no longer seem important. Whoever starts it, neither of them seems to want to stop it, so on it goes for several blissful moments.

They part again. Hope has a question. "What now? Where do we go from here?"

"We go to Bardo." Echo says, although she knows Hope did not mean the question literally. "We find Bellamy, because he's still my family. We find your mum and Octavia. And then -"

"Then what?" Hope sounds almost annoyed. "Then we hide here and hope for the best, growing tomatoes?"

"Then we'll work it out. We'll look at the situation and come up with a plan. Together."

"We'll find a way to make it work." Hope agrees, leaning back in for another kiss.

Echo kisses her back, because that seems like the best move, here, when the woman she loves has just confirmed that they have a future together. Sure, it might not be an easy future, but she has faith in their ability to think of something and make it happen.

They'll use their wits and form a strategy, because that's what sensible women do.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
